The chief issue for me is that while the story might make sense from a narrative perspective (the hero's journey and whatnot), it makes NO sense from a reality perspective - not the talking snakes and magic trees side of things, but that a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity would (a) have created a situation where the problem would arise in the first place, and (b) have to pay a death for a life, instead of redemption just happening with a thought.

Point being - it sounds exactly the kind of story someone might make up to try and make sense of the world, as opposed to something a real god might do. Place the story in the Norse or Roman mythologies and it would fit it really well.....and we don't give THOSE stories any basis in reality, so why this one?

First you need to ask yourself what exactly was Gods plan when he created the world and mankind? Then and only then can you begin to debate whether or not that plan was flawed.

By that statement, you then believe that it's part of god's plan to have billions and billions of humans over the course of time be born, suffer living, and then burn in hell for all eternity simply for not worshipping his holyass. Because if that wasn't the plan, then the plan must be flawed.

Granted 4000 years was still a long time but when you begin to understand how God works you'll see how this had less to do with what God was willing to give and more to do with what man was ready to receive.

Ah, but it's all our fault. Got it. His omnipotency couldn't possibly have known, or changed, how and when man would be willing to receive his message.

yhwh could have done a lot of things, if he were actually omni-anything.[1] Which kind of underscores the whole absurdity of the Eden tale. He wouldn't need a tree to undo the error. He could have just thought it. But that is not what he wanted in any case. In fact, he made sure the tree was inaccessible by putting armed guards at the door.

Quote from: Gen 3:23-24

23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

bold mine.

Heck, the very idea of having magical trees given an omnimax god is absurd.

SCREWTAPE...Even if the term is an apologetic construction it doesn't mean that it is recent.

Recent as in post-xian. That matters. And if it is apologetic it means necessarily that it is something that came later. It was made to defend ideas that already existed. In this case, an idea is being retroactively applied in order to make the original nonsensical story try to make sense. You are trying to say the jews really meant something else in genesis and didn't know it. But it's baloney.

It is like trying to explain the witch's gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel by referencing the magic beans in Jack and the Beanstalk. Or, in historic terms, it would be taking a modern interpretation of the bill of rights and trying to say this was what Jefferson really meant, but didn't know it at the time.

The entire concept of spiritual life and death can be dated back to the first century and to the teachings of Christ himself.

Citations please. If the term "spiritual death" does not appear in the bible anywhere, then you have a tough row to hoe trying to say it was a teaching of jesus H, since that is the only place the teachings of this alleged messiah are allegedly recorded.

And just for the record, xian views aren't based on the teachings of christ. They are based on misinterpretation of jewish tradition, the varied stories about jesus H (which are highly contradictory), and the rantings of a delusional maniac named Paul who co-opted the jesus stories to suit his own particular ideas.

If everything in Eden is talking about the spiritual death of man and not a physical death.....

...why did Christ have to die a physical death to redeem mankind? Surely dying a spiritual death would have made more sense?

Come to think of it...

Why are we all so sure that Jesus died a physical death?

Perhaps when the bible talks of Jesus carrying the cross, getting nailed, the resurrection, etc, etc... it only meant spiritually. Likewise, when Thomas wanted to see the holes from the nails, he only meant the "spiritual holes"(whatever that means) from the spiritual nails.

You have to admit, it would explain why nobody paid much attention to the zombies that went around after Jesus "died".[1] It was only a "spiritual" resurrection.

Perhaps when the bible talks of Jesus carrying the cross, getting nailed, the resurrection, etc, etc... it only meant spiritually. Likewise, when Thomas wanted to see the holes from the nails, he only meant the "spiritual holes"(whatever that means) from the spiritual nails.

You have to admit, it would explain why nobody paid much attention to the zombies that went around after Jesus "died".[1] It was only a "spiritual" resurrection.

In fact, in the early days of Christianity, there was at least one "camp", and probably more than that, who held that Jesus never existed physically at all. The first few centuries of Christianity were actually marked by gigantic disagreements between various sects on just about everything you can think of; some held that Jesus was purely physical, some held he was pure spirit, some held he was a mix of both. Some sects were trinitarians, some were unitarians, some were binitarians. There was at least one faction that held that the world was created by the Devil when God wasn't looking. In fact, it's not even entirely clear what Paul himself thought on the matter of Jesus' physicality. What finally ended up happening was that the Council of Nicea decided on a whole bunch of crap, then persecuted and suppressed any factions that held views contrary to the Nicene Creed, eventually wiping them out.

I wish more Christians knew things like this about their own religion's history.

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

It is worse than that. I read an article yesterday that said 90% of Christians have never read the bible cover to cover.

I've never read any studies or surveys about that, but I wouldn't be surprised. Most of the people I've known in my admittedly-anecdotal experience who have read the entire bible have been atheists.

Who was it said "I'm not an atheist because I haven't read the Bible - I'm an atheist because I HAVE."?

To be honest, even the better-read Christians I've encountered have only read in-depth parts of the Bible, and very few have looked into the history of it (other than a quick "hallelujah" to Josephus).

Incredible, really - if I honestly believed that there WAS a god, on whose judgement as to how well I did what he wanted rested my eternal salvation or damnation, the very FIRST thing I would do would be to go through the entire holy book page by page, making careful notes, to be sure that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I'm regularly amazed by how many people swear to me there is a god sitting in judgement of us all, but who have never botherered to verify exactly what is is he wants.

You can't do that on your own (study the bible page by page taking notes so you understand what to do to make it to salvation). That would be like understanding our tax codes. You need a tax accountant and/or preacher to make sure you get what is coming to you. There is a pecking order here. Don't upset the system.

The story isn't flawed. One might choose not to believe it but there really isn't any error in its telling. God says: Don't eat that, you'll die if you eat that.They eat it anyway, they die and then He comes down to bring them back to life.The End.Where exactly is the flaw?

I'm sorry to be coming late to this discussion. But I think you are raising a really important question.

You see, if your god is omnipotent and omniscient, then he knew at the beginning of time that Eve was going to eat the apple, and that he would punish all of humanity for all of eternity because of it.

In other words, he set humanity up to fail. And then, if you believe the stories in the OT, he continues to taunt and punish humanity for the flaws that he built into us, and the sins that he knew we were going to commit.

Either that, or he made a mistake.

If your god created us in his own image, it seems he is at least as flawed as we are. Perhaps moreso.

To my mind the biggest flaw in the whole saga is that God didn't (couldn't ) just start over.He poofed us into existence in the beginning - from nothing. Right?But once were out and about there was something about us that He could not repeat - so even though Adam and Eve were not fit for purpose He had to send them out to multiply, and then engaged in an artificial selection and breeding program i.e. the flood, serial genocides of his "enemies" etc.

The second biggest flaw is that Almighty God is limited to just the one Son. Why not a whole posse of Sons, one for each nation, and successive waves of them with appropraite messages for each millenium?

Bluecolour, do you understand why we would consider "it was spiritual" to be a convenient cop-out? It's because it's a weasel word that can be invoked to "resolve" contradictions in anything by redefining away the inconsistencies posed by a simple straightforward reading.

Of course you don't need to plug any holes - a longstanding tradition of maintaining the faith at all costs has already done all the work for you.

To my mind the biggest flaw in the whole saga is that God didn't (couldn't ) just start over (he had to) engage in an artificial selection and breeding program i.e. the flood, serial genocides of his "enemies" etc.

And there's another thing. Christians are against abortions at least in part because each little baby was planned for by god - which implies that god has a crucial part in the fertilisation process.

So if god started seeing bad people proliferate, wouldn't it be a simpler and less horrific way of dealing with the situation by just ensuring that bad couples never conceived? In a generation, he'd be back to just good people, without having to inflict death by drowning on everyone - including the babies and infants that he apparently knew would otherwise grow up evil but who he allowed to be conceived anyway.

The story isn't flawed. One might choose not to believe it but there really isn't any error in its telling. God says: Don't eat that, you'll die if you eat that.They eat it anyway, they die and then He comes down to bring them back to life.The End.Where exactly is the flaw?

There are several.

One depends on god being omniscient and omnipotent. I'm not sure the bible itself tells us he is, but it's still a main feature of contemporary christianity. Such a god should have known in advance what would happen and was perfectly positioned to prevent it. If nothing else, telling A&E about the tree does imply he had knowledge of it. Even a limited deity should have been able to put up a fence - if you want a kid to not read a book, you don't leave it lying around.

The second is that the most common interpretation of the story has A&E learn about good and evil by eating from the tree. If so, how is it it just for god to punish two people whose sin is finding out that they shouldn't have sinned? They couldn't know going against gods command was wrong. It's like punishing a kid for reading a book that for the first time, ever, delivers to him/her the understanding that they shouldn't read.

Next, we don't judge people because their ancestors commited crimes; I can't imagine a more basic tenet to morality ... if we want to judge someone on his/her moral merit, we cannot judge them by someone else's. It's tautological. The story presents a concept of sin that suggests that moral corruptibility can be acquired by innocuous actions such as eating a fruit or simply being a son of Adam. (I can't help but wonder what would have happened if a boar had eaten from that tree. And yes, that is like asking what would have happened if Luke had not disabled R2D2's controlling device.)Now the kid's future progeny will grow up knowing the contents of the book ... maybe. I'm not too sure what the biblical nature of humankind's corruption actually is.

The third is the nature of the punishment visited upon Eve especially. It's why childbirth is painful. Though somewhat random, hat's no problem in the context of the Eden story. It is, however, a problem if Jesus later lifts original sin from us because, well, women still experience pain during childbirth, don't they? Their punishment doesn't seem to have ceased. (Nor does it seem to me that all of christianity has taken this sin-lifting to heart.)Now, the father is going to punish his grandchildren as well, for some form of hereditary corruption that they had no say or part in acquiring. But to make it alright again, the father will now reach into the cookie jar and present the kid with a cookie - as an act of forgiveness. (If you're not trinitarian, he'll send someone else to do it.)

And finally, just to go full circle, why would an omniscient god not have forgiven humanity then and there? Why wait? The implication being that god changes his mind - or worse, that he is willing to let his actions be dictated by wrath.

Graybeard. It says nothing about the tree of life being an 'antidote' to the tree of knowledge. If it was then God could just let them eat it and undo the error.A lot of the other stuff you've said just doesn't tie up anywhere.

Why do you tell lies? You say you are a Christian but have never read a Bible. Why do you try to deceive people? What is so wrong with the Truth - The Truth that God dictates?

Ge:3:22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:Ge:3:23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.Ge:3:24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.